This Drexel grad’s Y Combinator startup is a layaway system for air travel

This piece of news created a buzz around our millennial-laden office: we are all in to pay for airplane tickets on layaway.
Airfordable, a Chicago-based platform that lets you book airfare and pay it in installments, was cofounded by Drexel University grad Ama Marfo, who hails from Ghana. Marfo, who graduated in 2011, was part of elite West Coast accelerator Y Combinator’s summer 2016 class.
The platform, which has reportedly enrolled 27,000 users, was a response to her struggling to pay for airfare to visit relatives over the holidays.
“I wanted to see my family in Ghana during school breaks, but couldn’t afford the $2,000 ticket,” Marfo told the Huffington Post. “I stayed in the dorm alone or with other international students who couldn’t go home. Because of this personal frustration, I set out to determine how to make travel more accessible.”

As of today, one million miles have been booked on https://t.co/iUy5VfysVe. Cheers to the next million. 🍾🍾 pic.twitter.com/yKMsPn3ep7

— Airfordable (@FlyAirfordable) February 22, 2016

Airfordable has been getting plenty of press lately, like this quick shoutout on ABC:

Or this Forbes story, which dubbed the system a “microloan tool for airfare.”
Is Marfo coming for Scholly founder Christopher Gray’s crown as Drexel’s entrepreneurial darling? (We kid. It’s not like there can only be one.)
Read the full story over at HuffPo.